aeronautic show

[LeoLeo]

Huston,
I have a problem ....refraze ... multiple problems..

Yesterday was my first attempt as photographer to one aeronautic show. I may say, it was a succesfuly failure, because I didn't know from where I should "attack" this problem, which raise me several questions.
1. Autofocus or manual focus?
2. Hiperfocal distance? (and using the live view for framming... but I don't know if I see something on live view)
3. What diafragm should be used, in order to maximize the DoF, and to keep the planes in sharp focus.
4. Aperture priority / Shutter priority or Manual ?
5. There is any shutter speed to keep the propelers "in motion", but to avoid motion blur ? (Shooting the rain, 1/60 is the shutter speed for this...for propelers ?)

I didn't have a great deal of time, arround half an hour ( arround +32 celsius) and my son is still to young for this heat, but he seems to enjoy as much as me the show, especially the helicopters.
As a personal recomandation... be prepared to fill the cards very fast , and have spares with you. I did arround 100 pictures in 30 min, with an incredible failure rate (most of them are out of focus, or to blurred)

Some of the acceptable photos from yesterday. Any C&C are most wellcomed. Thanks for viewing.

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


Leo

[stevewe88]

Hi Leo
It looks like you got some nice shots for just 30 minutes shooting, well done.

To answer some of your questions-
1/60 Tv is perfect for getting motion blur on the proppeller but keeping the plane sharp, you will still need to pan the shot though so always expect to get a lot of trash.
I always use auto focus on servo.
If you are shooting into the sky there wouldn't normally be much there to need blurring by a shallow depth of field so I would always go for the smallest aperture possible to maximise the chance of the whole plane being in sharp focus.
I would always use spot metering too and use exposure to compensation to overexpose by at least 1 stop to make sure that all the detail in the plane comes out under the wings etc.

Others may still have more advice but this works for me

For what it's worth, I like number 5 the best but on my monitor it looks a little dark. Maybe increase the saturation a bit.

[LeoLeo]

Thanks Steve,

I will try to increase a bit.

Leo

[Geoff F]

You have certainly managed some sharp photos there, Leo.

The trouble with propellors is that they run at different speeds; I have found that I can usually go up to 1/250 without any problems. Any less can cause camera shake with larger lenses.

And because shutter speed is the dominant issue, I prefer to use the Shutter Priority (Tv) setting. Adjusting the ISO gives a bit of variation over aperture.

And, as Steve said, Auto focus with the Servo setting plus spot metering.

ps. when I have needed to shoot at too high a shutter speed and have 'frozen' the propellors, I have managed to apply a bit of radial blur to the blades. But it is a bit tricky and long winded to do.

[LeoLeo]

Thanks for the info, and for encouraging

Hope to be soon a new airshow, to apply some of them.

Leo